… Thailand’s Scariest
Bogeyman’ The Atlantic’s Patrick Winn provides
backstory on “Thailand’s scariest bogeyman.” He’s “not the sort of
man you want to make angry. General Khattiya maintains his own
gun-toting militia. He accurately predicts grenade attacks against
government targets. And though he’s vowed to defend the anti-government ‘Red Shirt’ protesters encamped for nine weeks in downtown
Bangkok, even their leadership has disavowed him for openly
agitating violence.”
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Can The
‘Demographic Time Bomb’ Spread? The Japan Times’ Christopher Johnson worries,
“After two decades of migration from northern provinces which doubled
Bangkok’s population, these poor dark-skinned laborers — and their
city-bred offspring — have essentially held the government hostage and
pushed it to call for November elections a year ahead of schedule. This
demographic time bomb also exists in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Ho
Chi Minh City (Saigon), Manila and other cities with huge migrant
populations. If Thailand’s red shirt uprising is a revolution of rising
expectations among the servant class, then migrant laborers elsewhere
might also demand a greater share of political power.”
For the last two months, anti-government protesters in Bangkok have shut down the city’s commercial heart in a mostly non-violent effort to get the prime minister to leave office. But the government has just given them a deadline of midnight Thursday to leave the streets.
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When I first went into the camp, I was surprised by the orderliness and the industriousness of the people inside, who’d set up shops to sell food and red-themed merchandise, pharmacies, and even a massage parlor within the tent city. But the area still resembles a refugee camp: dwellings made of plastic sheets and bamboo; garbage strewn across the ground; the smell of rotting food and unwashed bodies permeate the air. Conditions will only get worse, assuming the government shuts off the water and cuts off supplies after the Thursday deadline.
See the full article from “The Atlantic”
For the last two months, anti-government protesters in Bangkok have shut down the city’s commercial heart in a mostly non-violent effort to get the prime minister to leave office. But the government has just given them a deadline of midnight Thursday to leave the streets.
…
When I first went into the camp, I was surprised by the orderliness and the industriousness of the people inside, who’d set up shops to sell food and red-themed merchandise, pharmacies, and even a massage parlor within the tent city. But the area still resembles a refugee camp: dwellings made of plastic sheets and bamboo; garbage strewn across the ground; the smell of rotting food and unwashed bodies permeate the air. Conditions will only get worse, assuming the government shuts off the water and cuts off supplies after the Thursday deadline.
See the full article from “The Atlantic”
DEPUTY PM Suthep Thaugsuban turned himself in to Department of Special Investigation officials at 8am today, fulfilling a demand that red shirt leaders say will end the Bangkok protest.
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nationmultimedia.com The Chiang Mai Convention and Exhibition Centre is expected to bring three billion baht of revenue into the northern province each year when its opens in October 2011. It will be the first such venue outside Bangkok that is owned and developed by the government. The next project is the Phuket Convention Centre, now in the final phase of study and site selection.
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heraldsun.com.au A couple who operated a Sydney brothel forced five women to live in ”conditions of slavery,” making them work more than 100 hours a week even if they were sick. Trevor Frank McIvor, 62, and Kanokporn Tanuchit, 44, have each pleaded not guilty to five counts of possessing a slave and five counts of using a slave. Jurors also heard that the five women were recruited from Thailand by a third party, who arranged Australian visas for them.
See the full article from “Phuketwan”
Thai police sought yesterday to push back anti-government “Red Shirts” from a confrontation zone in Bangkok after deadly grenade attacks further stoked tensions in the long-running political standoff.
Hundreds of riot police, unarmed but carrying shields and batons, moved on the heavily fortified barricades which form the front line of the Reds’ vast encampment that has paralysed the main retail district in the heart of Bangkok.
“Police asked protesters to move their barricade some 100 metres… to ease the confrontation but so far there is no agreement,” Major General Anuchai Lekbumrung of Bangkok Metropolitan Police told AFP.
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It was the latest bloodshed on the streets of Bangkok in the weeks-long standoff between the government and Red Shirts, and triggered alarm in the international community which issued urgent calls for for restraint.
Five grenades exploded in the heart of Bangkok’s business district on Thursday, killing at least one person and wounding 75 as rival groups of protesters demonstrated and insulted each another across a makeshift barricade.
The conflict has its roots in social divisions between the mostly poor and rural red shirts and an urban middle class that had not been active on the streets until about a week ago.
The antagonism between them was displayed by a pro-government protester who made a rude gesture towards the red shirts on Thursday as she stood in front of a misspelt placard in English reading “Uneducate people.”
The explosions, several of which occurred on the platform of an elevated train, scattered shrapnel through crowds that included foreign tourists, sending people fleeing in panic into shops and restaurants. They threatened to ignite wider violence after more than six weeks of protests that have sought to bring down the government and force a new election.
See the full article from “The Guardian”
Behind the Thai red-shirts’ carnival, a dark edge emergesBy Tim Johnston in Bangkok Published: April 24 2010 03:00 | Last updated: April 24 2010 03:00
Behind barricades of tyres and sharpened bamboo staves that surround their four-block bastion in central Bangkok, Thailand’s red-shirted protesters have built a parallel community in their own image.
The food is spicier, the political discourse more profane and the accommodation and sanitation far more rudimentary than that of the Thai capital’s usual inhabitants.
Blasts rock Bangkok amid bitter stand-offBy Tim Johnston in Bangkok Published: April 23 2010 03:00 | Last updated: April 23 2010 03:00
One person was killed and more than 70 injured last night after explosions rocked Bangkok’s business district, further stoking tension in a bitter political stand-off that has already claimed 25 lives.
At least seven blasts hit just outside a heavily barricaded camp set up by anti-government protesters, injuring government supporters who had gathered near the camp perimeter and people waiting on the platform of the city’s skytrain transport system.
Thai PM rejects protesters’ peace offerBy Tim Johnston in Bangkok and wires Published: April 23 2010 04:48 | Last updated: April 24 2010 16:05
Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva on Saturday a rejected a new, compromise offer by anti-government red-shirt demonstrators to end weeks of increasingly violent protests in return for early polls.
The red-shirted supporters of ousted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra immediately removed their offer to end a three-week occupation of Bangkok’s ritzy shopping area if the government dissolved parliament and announced elections in 30 days.
An injured woman is evacuated from a blast site in the financial district of central Bangkok. Picture: AFP Source: AFP
UPDATE 1.40pm: AUSSIES have been warned to stay away from Bangkok after deadly attacks that left a Melbourne man injured.
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“Due to escalating violence in central Bangkok, all US citizens should avoid nonessential travel to Bangkok,” the US State Department said, upgrading a travel alert issued two days earlier.
Grenade attacks late Thursday left three people dead and 75 wounded inside Bangkok’s business hub.
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The military said earlier on Thursday it wanted to avoid further bloodshed but warned time was running out for the demonstrators to leave their base in Bangkok’s shopping and hotel district.
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But the Reds, demonstrating in Bangkok for weeks to topple Abhisit’s government, have ruled out talks until the military withdraws.
See the full article from “Herald Sun”